Economy
Give sustainability a chance: Tasmanian Forests Agreement in perspective
Picture: Matt Newton, here
The signatories to the Tasmanian Forests Agreement (TFA) have spent more than two years trying to square the circle of forest conflict in Tasmania. The deal they brokered deserves prima facie respect: it is the closest to sustainability the state will probably ever get.
While many have been critical of elements of the process, myself included, and while many are critical of elements of the content, myself included, the key question now is: “Could you or I ever have delivered a better package?”.
If you think you could have, then it is incumbent on you to explain not just what that package is but how it could have been acceptable to the other interests with whom it would have to be negotiated.
If you aren’t interested in negotiating then you are not promoting sustainability; you are simply advocating for a single interest.
Defining sustainability
Most people today accept the Brundtland definition of sustainability as development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.
Operationalising the definition in a specific policy context, however, requires political institutions to determine whose “needs” are met today and how much protection to give ecological systems to provide for future generations’ needs.
Such institutions cannot be dominated by a single economic, social or environmental constituency.
If the process is controlled by industry, then longer-term ecosystem conservation “needs” will be sacrificed to more immediate short-term demands for profits and jobs.
But equally, if the process is captured by environmentalists, an overly cautious approach to ecosystem protection may result in forgone development.
Sustainability, then, is about achieving an acceptable balance between economic, social and environmental interests and values. It requires properly constituted multi-stakeholder forums that engage in deep deliberation to broker an appropriate compromise.
Sustainability and forestry conflict
Since at least the late 1970s, forests and forestry have been lightning rods for conflict over the meaning of sustainability.
Australia has been a latecomer to new governance arrangements in general and to forestry in particular. The Forest Stewardship Council Australia was founded only in 2006, long after the organisation was well established elsewhere.
Today, the Forest Stewardship Council — long the bête noire of mainstream forestry — explicitly embraces this new governance sustainability principle. “Responsible forestry” emerges from the deliberations of the Council’s separate but equal “chambers” representing economic, social and environmental interests.
Tasmania has had virtually no new governance arrangements in the past two decades, ever since the failed “Salamanca Agreement” process. It was only in 2010 that a “roundtable” on forestry finally brought economic, social and environmental interests together.
After over two years of on-again, off-again negotiations, this not-too-unbalanced, mainly consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder negotiating group has — almost in spite of itself — produced a compromise deal aimed at achieving the required balance.
Who gets – and loses – what
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